Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 218, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1913 — Auto Owners All Asked to Help Make Parade a Success. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Auto Owners All Asked to Help Make Parade a Success.

All auto owners are asked to get busy and help make the automobile parade at the Red Men’s PowWow a big success. It is only a fear days until the celebration starts and every auto owner can help materially to make this feature a grand affair. Come In and do yonr part

SYNOPSIS. George Anderson and wife see a remarkable looking man come out of the Clermont hotel, look around furtively, wash his hands in the snow and pass on. Commotion attracts them to the Clermont, where It is found that the beautiful Miss Edith Challoner has fallen dead. Anderson describes the man he saw wash his hands in the snow. The hotel manager declares him to be Orlando Brotherson. Physicians find that Miss Challoner was stabbed and not shot, which seems to clear Brotherson of suspicion. Gryce, an> aged detective, and Sweetwater, his assistant, take up the case. They believe Miss Challoner stabbed herself. A paper cutter found near the scene «f tragedy is toelieved to be the weapon used. Mr. Challoner tells of a batch of letters found in his daughter’s desk, signed "O. B.” All are love letters except one which shows that the writer was displeased. This letter was signed by Orlando Brotherson. Anderson goes with Sweetwater to identify Brotherson, who is to address a meeting of anarchists. The place is raided by the police and Brotherson escapes without being identified. Brotherson is found •ivlng in a tenement under the name of Dunn. He is an Inventor. Brotherson tells the coroner of his acquaintance with Miss Challoner and how she repulsed him with scorn when he offered her his love. Sweetwater recalls the mystery of the murder of a washerwoman in which some details were similar to the Challoner affalr. Challoner Admits his daughter was deeply interested, if not in love with Brotherson. Brotherson gives the police a plausible explanation of his conduct. Sweetwater plans to disguise . himself as a carpenter and seek lodgings in the same building with Brotherson.

CHAPTER XVl.—Continued. And so It came to pass that at an hour when all the other hard-working people in the building were asleep, or at least striving to sleep, these two men still sat at their work, one in the light, the other in the darkness, facing each other, consciously to the ope, unconsciously to the other, across the hollow well of the now Bilent court. Eleven o’clock! Twelve! No change on Brotherson’s part or in Brotherson’s room; but a decided one in the place where Sweetwater sat. Objects which had been totally indistinguishable even to his penetrating eye could now be seen in ever brightening outline. The moon had reached the open space above the court, and he was getting the full benefit of it. But it was a benefit he would have been glad to dispense with. Darkness was Jike a shield to him. He did not feel quite sure that he wanted this shield removed. With no curtain to the window and no shade, a*d all this brilliance pouring into the room, he feared the disclosure of his presence there, or, if not that, some effect on his own mind of those memories he was more anxious to see mirrored in another’s discomfiture than in his own. Was it to escape any lack of concentration which these same memories might bring, that he rose and stepped to the window? Or was it under one of those involuntary Impulses which move us in spite of ourselves to do the very thing our Judgment disapproves?

No sooner had he approached the *lll than Mr. Brotherson’s shade flew way up and he, too, looked out. Their Stances met, and for an Instant the hardy detective experienced that Involuntary stagnation of the blood which follows an Inner shock. He felt that he had been recognized. The moonlight lay full upon his face, and the other had seen and known him. Else, why the constrained attitude and sudden rigidity observable in this confronting figure, with its partially lifted hand? A man like Brotherson makes no pause in any action however trivial, without a reason. Either he had been transfixed by this glimpse of his enemy on watch, or—daring thought! had seen enough of sepulchral suggestion in the wan face looking forth from this fatal window 4o shake him from his composure and let loose the grinning devil of remorse from its iron prison-house? If so, the movement was a memorable one, and the hazard quite worth while. He had gained—no! he had gained nothing. He had been the foot of his own wishes. No one, let alone Brotherson, could have mistaken his face for that of a woman. He had forgotten his newly-grown beard. Some other cause must be found for the other's attitude. It savored of shock, if not fear. If it were fear, then had he roused an emotion which might rebound upon himself in sharp reprisal. Death had been known to strike people standing where he stood; mysterious death of a species quite unrecognizable. What warranty had he that ft would not strike him, and now? None.

Yet it was Brotherson who moved first. With a shrug of the shoulder plainly visible to the man opposite, he turned away from the window and without lowering the shade, began fathering up bis papers for the night, and later banking up his stove with ashes. Sweetwater, with a breath of decided relief, stepped back and threw himself on the bed. It had really been a trial for him to stand there under the other's eye, though his mind refused to formulate his fear, or to give him any satisfaction when he asked himself what there was in the situation suggestive of death to the woman or harm to bJmself. ..... Mot did morning light bring coun-

eel, as Is usual in similar cases. He felt the mystery more in the hufcbuh and restless turmoil of the day than In the night’s silence and inactivity. He was glad when the stroke of six gave him an excuse to leave the room. At half past six he found the janitor. He was, to all appearance, in a state of great excitement and he spoke very fast. "I won’t stay another night in that room," he loudly declared, breaking iu where the family were eating breakfast by lamplight. "I don’t want to make any trouble and I don’t want to give my reasons; but that room don’t suit me. I’d rather take the dark one you talked about yesterday. There’s the money. Have my things moved today, will ye?” ‘‘But your moving out after one night’s stay will give that room a bad name,” stammered the janitor, rising awkwardly. ‘’There’ll be talk and I won’t be able to let that room all winter.” —“Nonsense! Every man hasn’t the nerves I have. You’ll let it in a week. But let or no let, I’m going front Into the little dark room. I’ll get the boss to let me ofT at half past four. So that’s settled.” He waited for no reply and got none; but when he appeared promptly at a quarter to five, he found his few belongings moved Into a middle room on'the fourth floor of the front building, which, oddly perhaps, chanced to be next door to the one he had held under watch the night before. The first page of his adventure In the Hicks street tenement had been turned, and he was ready to start upon another.

CHAPTER XVII. In Which a Book Plays a Leading Part. When Mr. Brotherson came in that night, he noticed that the door of the room adjoining his own stood open. He did not hesitate. Making immediately for it, he took a glance inside, then spoke up with a ringing Intonation: "Halloo! coming to live In this hole?” u The occupant—a young man, evidently a workman and somewhat sickly if one could judge from his complexion—turned around from some tinkering he was engaged in and met the intruder fairly, face to facer- “ Yes, this is to be my castle. Are you the owner of the buildings? If so—” “I am not the owner. I live next door. Haven’t I seen you before, young man?” “If you go up Henry street it’s likely enough that you’ve seen me not once, hut many times. I’m the fellow who works at the bench next the window in Schuper’s repairing shop. Everybody knows me." “I’ve seen you. I’ve seen you somewhere else than in Schuper’s shop. Do you remember me?” “No, sir; I’m sorry to be imperlite but I don’t remember you at all. Won’t you sit down? It’s not very cheerful, but I’m so glad to get out of the room I was in last night that this looks all right to me. Back there, other building,” he whispered. “I didn’t know, and took the room which

had a window in it; but —" The stop was significant; so was his smile, which had a touch of sickliness in it, as well as humor. But Brotherson was not to be caught. i a “I saw you,” said he. "You were standing in the window overlooking the court. You were not Bleeping then. I suppose you know that a woman died in that room?" "Yes; they told me so this morning." "Was that the first you’d heard of it?” "Sure!” The word almost Jumped at the questioner. "Do you suppose I’d have taken the room If— f /

Eleven o’Clock! Twelve o’Clock! No Change on Brotherson’s Part.